


A Bullet For Amaro

by Thepresidentofrussia23



Category: Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Blood and Violence, Character Bleed, Character Death, Coma, Death, Everyone Is Gay, Gay, Gen, Gun Violence, Gunshot Wounds, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Hurts So Good, Mike Dodds Lives, Nick Amaro dies, Nick Whump, Seizures, Tearjerker, Tears, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:21:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23553724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thepresidentofrussia23/pseuds/Thepresidentofrussia23
Summary: "A bullet...with my name on it. It's a simple concept and yet, every cop knows, there is a bullet out there with their name written on it. Someday I may never be able to come back home again. Someday I'll be another dead cop. And all you can do is mourn and wonder what went wrong. And all I can do is hope that you will carry my legacy with candor and honor."
Relationships: Nick Amaro/Odafin "Fin" Tutuloa
Comments: 7
Kudos: 4





	1. Close Examination of Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Qui3tlyR3ading](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qui3tlyR3ading/gifts), [Hetsez](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hetsez/gifts).



It was a dark and overcast evening as Nick Amaro and his partner Fin Tutuloa were undercover in a party with porn dealers, they were inside dressed in their beautiful tuxes and clinking glasses of champagne as they were prepared to make a deal to buy one of the victims as a part of the deal that was to go down that evening, meanwhile outside, the clouds grew thicker and thicker and threatened rain on the SWAT teams that were waiting outside out of sight as to avoid blowing the covers of Amaro and Tutuloa. The hours were long and agonizing and yet they waited with the patience of a lion, ready to stalk its prey.  
Amaro and Fin chattered as the guests talked and they huddled in, their heads touching as the younger man joked  
"I think by the time we are done with this, you may owe me another dinner, say, shouldn't you take me to Earl's Diner sometime soon?"  
Fin snorted 

"Actually, shouldn't you return the favor since the last date was paid by me?"  
Amaro shrugged  
"Fine then, I'll pay then. Only because you are so convincing and that you are not at all threatening my life. The bright side, two months hard work is about to come to fruition."  
Fin nodded as they went forward with the Halliburton suit case filled with 100,000 dollars of cash and the man smiled to his bodyguards, those types of men loved their security and were extremely stingy on the locations and times where they met and now they were meeting up near the docks with the girl in their hands, one of them seemed nervous and constantly looked around, when Amaro stepped forward to hand over the case, the bodyguard shot him once in the upper left side of his chest and more bullets as Fin pulled out his ankle gun and fired back as Amaro was thrown over into the icy, dark, murky waters of the East river. The SWAT soon eliminated them and Fin leapt in the depths of the water, he saw his partner sinking from the water soaking his suit and his weight combined was pulling him under, he quickly swam over in the dark, icy water and grabbed Nick by hooking the undersides of his elbows, inside of Nick's armpits and swam upwards where Olivia and Sonny were waiting to pull Nick up. He was very much worried that Nick might have swallowed water, he might have choked on it, he might not even be breathing as he held Nick's head above water and swam to the docks and handed his still body to them as they rolled him over onto his side to examine the gunshot wounds.  
Olivia was desperately calling for an ambulance over her radio as Fin ran his fingers over Amaro's carotid artery, sighing in relief, seeing that his heart was beating and that he was breathing, each exhaled breath oozed out blood that Nick couldn't afford to lose as someone handed him a first aid kit and he opened it as quickly as he could, pulling out the gauze and the tape and quickly taping them on his injuries, there was so much blood everywhere, Nick's blood was puddling around him as they gently rolled him back onto his side as he tried to roll back onto his back instinctively as Fin added  
"No Nick, please we need to treat you, you are not in any shape to move right now, please stay still. Please."  
Fin then took a foil blanket from the trunk of a squad car, not caring whose it was and he gently, with the help of Sonny, rolled Nick into the blanket in the recovery position, with the help of his first aid lessons from forever ago that Munch had insisted on him learning in case if backup was taking its sweet time, he made sure that Nick was breathing and tucked Nick in and hoped to the gods that the ambulance would come because Nick's core temperature was dropping according to the thermometer in his mouth and he was rapidly approaching deep shock.  
Fin was beginning to feel his emotions rise to the surface, he very rarely expressed them at all and now his brother in arms was dying right in front of him as he looked up and saw his expression of horror reflected in Carisi's face as he began to talk to Nick's frozen still face, whispering to him to hang on adding  
"You had better pull through this Nick, that's an order dammit. Just keep breathing, everything is fine, everything will be okay now, just stay with us."  
And the med evac helicopter landed and they carefully rolled him onto the backboard, putting a neckbrace and two blocks on either side of his head to restrain him from rolling his head from side to side and then they tied him down and then they hauled him to the helicopter to airlift him to the hospital with no time to waste.


	2. Examination of the truth and lies

Captain Olivia Benson sighed deeply and hung up the phone after listening to Carisi's frantic voice in the helicopter describe to her the severity of Nick's injuries, she knew that things were bad, but she hadn't known that they would be this awful or the fact that Nick had yet to regain consciousness.  
Meanwhile the helicopter was landing on the helipad, as doctors and nurses and medics waited impatiently so that the rotors would stop moving and that they could reach the dying man safely, they ducked under the slowing blades as they went over to lift the backboard, slowly, calmly and efficiently as well as professionally onto the stretcher and then they rushed him through the corridors as Fin was wrapped in a blanket, his features on his face a picture of horror and alarm evident on his face as he ran along with the gaggle of doctors and nurses with equipment to try and keep Amaro alive as his condition rapidly declined before their very eyes. Olivia took one look at Amaro and stopped believing that he would make it and started praying that he would, because his wounds were horrific and ugly beyond belief.   
She placed a calm and gentle hand on Fin, who was pale as a sheet and shivering like a leaf as the cold began to register through his nervous system, they all tried to follow the gurney that was pulled into a procedure room as the nurses tried to treat him, one nurse was seen cutting away at Nick's shirt, while another cut away at his pants and pulled his shoes and socks off and cut off his shoulder holster and took out the pistol and his badge and put them in bags, the doctor asked them to leave and that Nick couldn't be in better hands and that he would receive the best treatment. Fin blinked as he looked around the humming hive of activity of nurses rushing around Nick, trying to find Nick's face in all the humanity, he felt himself choking on air when he found Nick, he was deathly pale and as white as a sheet in comparison to his normally sun kissed skin, as if he had already died and his red blood was a stark contrast to the white sheets that the blood stained. He gaped in horror at it all as he could hear the doctor speaking in words, words that he somehow couldn't understand, he could hear words like "hemorrhage" and "hypothermia" and worse "brain damage"  
A nurse told Fin "Detective Tutuloa" to try and gain his attention "We need to get you out of those clothes."  
He gently removed the blanket from the distracted man's shoulders and Fin took a look at himself and he gaped in horror, knowing that he was stained in Nick's blood, it sickened him to the very core, he frantically began to try and tear his clothing off, which naturally stuck to his skin which was also wet as well and he managed to tear off his shirt from sheer strength before the medic captured his wrists and then gently pushed him onto the exam table as he was told firmly and gently   
"Take it easy, you are safe Detective, your partner is in the best hands in this hospital. You need to focus on yourself first."   
he made sure that Fin was focusing on him and he realized that Tutuloa's skin was freezing cold and that he was hardly shivering at all, this wasn't good at all and he was possibly hypothermic and he said   
"Look, I have a set of clean scrubs you can change into, I will need to check your vitals as well."   
Fin went to the adjoined private bathroom in the triage room that he was given and he changed into them before he exited and left the room, ignoring the pleas of the medic who wanted him to at least rest and that they would notify him of any changes, but he had no care in the world for what the medic had to say to him as he was worried for Nick and he wanted that man to recover, he and Nick had many of their own conflicts, but he would never wish this sort of horror on him, he watched as the nurses and the doctors wheel the gurney to the room as he prayed, knowing that anything could and would go wrong and that there was so much hanging in the air as they waited, prayed and hoped for Nick to live.


	3. Hurting Souls.

Fin sighed bitterly as he stared outside the dark window, as the wind and the rain lashed against the window and he could see the branches swaying with the wind, he was starting to tremble ever so slightly, as if he was starting to have delayed reaction of shock and that he was unable to fight it off any longer and that, he was human, after all.   
Olivia slowly sat next to him, placing a gentle, steadying hand on his shoulder as he looked up and stared into her creased, weary, sleep deprived eyes, she sighed and tried to ask  
"Are you okay?"  
Fin wanted to snap  
"Do I look like I am okay as of the given moment? My partner was shot right in front of me for God's sake"  
He merely shook his head and then he listened to Olivia sigh sadly   
"This is the worst part, it happens so fast and so suddenly, you don't have much time to deal with the consequences, but they do happen, you're never prepared for something like this to ever happen, you deal with it the moment it is all over, because you have to. Because your body cannot be in a constant state of excitement, your body cannot handle that sort of stress and that sort of constant amount of energy loss. But now it is all over, and now you can only wait and see what the results will be for your partner. I'll hit you when you are trying to accept the facts and the events from last night."  
"But how could this happen? I should have reacted faster."  
"Please Fin, don't blame yourself for this, you did what you had to do. It won't help you or Nick Amaro, he needs you at your best and your strongest."  
Among the doctors was a Spanish woman named Dr. Rosalind Ruiz, she had a heavy Catalan accent that betrayed that she was from Catalonia and her heels clicked loudly as she scrubbed up and went into the operating room, she and the others faced a difficult task as she found six gunshot wounds, a collapsed lung, internal and external bleeding and he was still losing more blood as she examined X-Rays and she had ordered more glucose drips and IV plasma to be brought in, he was gushing out more blood than could be pumped into him and Dr. Rosalind noted a splinter had somehow found its way near Nick's spinal column, meaning that there was a potential for brain damage, she and the others knew that the EEG still showed brain activity, so he still was alive, at least for now, but they all knew his chances of survival were almost nonexistent. They managed to remove three bullets already and that, in of itself was pushing their luck as Nick was going through so much trauma and that his strength was running out, they had taken enough chances for now, chances that needed to be taken to save the mans life as they decided that they needed to call in Dr. Nathan Anders from Denver, Colorado, who was a neurosurgeon and that his plane was already in the air and it would need a six hour flight from Denver.  
It was nearly four hours later and Dr. Ruiz, running on four hours of sleep and adrenaline and coffee who faced the assembled SVU team, trying to be gentle and pragmatic at the same time, trying to remind herself that these men and women were not medical professionals, they were Legal professionals and therefore, medical terminology would do no good in explaining the situation on hand and how dire it really was. She hated this part of her job, letting them know that there was a possibility that he could die, that he could be in for a lengthy recovery.


	4. Explanations and Consequences

Fin sighed as he waited and waited and sighed   
"This is all my fault, I probably made things worse at the docks."  
Both Ruiz and Benson heard the tremors in his voice as he tried to speak, to communicate his feelings, his guilt over what he felt were inactions on his part which could potentially cost Amaro his life even now after this surgery and they still needed to do more surgeries, Nick was nowhere out of the woods as of yet and that concerned them all deeply as he was currently fighting for his own life. Benson broke through  
"Fin, please, don't do this to yourself, you did all that you could at that moment to save his life, there was nothing more that you should have done nor did you do anything that you shouldn't have done at that moment, please believe me, if you hadn't gotten Amaro onto the docks so quickly or so efficiently, he probably wouldn't have made it here in time, trust me on this."  
He nodded shakily as he took a tenuous breath and asked   
"Can I see him?"  
Benson expected the doctor to refuse outright. She knew from her decades of experience with hospitalized detectives, visitors were very rarely allowed into the Recovery room. The doctor took a deep breath before sighing and pinching her noise and then adding   
"This is a very rare exception that I am about to grant you, yes you may visit him given the circumstances and the condition that he is in, I am willing to give you this exception."   
Benson realized that her Detective may not even make it through the night, if that was how bad it was for Fin to be allowed to see him in the recovery room under these extreme exceptions that were given at all. Dr. Ruiz added as a warning  
"I wish to warn you that your partner is not in good shape, he looks bad and it is important that we disturb the back where the splinters are located as little as possible, he has a drain tube on his back to drain out any excess fluids that may try to aggerate in his back, trust me when I say this, it isn't a pretty sight and I know as SVU detectives you are trained to see heinous felonies. But this...this man that you see, he is a man that is your coworker and your partner and trust me, you will feel very nauseated deep inside, that is a very certain promise I can make for you."  
The nurses handed them baby blue gowns and caps and then they were guided into the recovery room where they could see a mass of activity around the sleeping man, it was all so clinical and professional and so sterile, it made Tutuloa sick to his stomach, he could smell the septic smell of alcohol and medicine and he hated it so much, he hated hospitals because they reminded him of sickness and death so much, at the end of the room, they could see a transparent wall of plastic sheets hanging from the ceiling and he could see a mass of equipment and machinery hooked up to Amaro, it was so horrifying how a human being, one moment could be standing and suddenly the next moment need machines to keep him alive. He could see Nick in the middle of it all.   
Benson could feel tears rolling down her face and her mask suddenly felt so itchy underneath as she tried to hold in her emotions. She knew she had to be strong but it was increasingly so difficult to do so when her own Detective that she failed to protect was dying by her mistakes and faults and she was helpless to watch as he fought for his own life.


	5. Facing the ugly reality

Barba, Benson and Fin all slowly took a deep breath, in their PPE and quietly watching as the equipment worked to try and keep him alive, the doctor gave them a moment to prepare before unfolding the plastic flaps and letting them inside the plastic quarantine tent that was specifically designed to keep Nick's injuries contamination free, they could hear the monitors beeping and the machines hissing in the background as well as air being compressed and released was the only sound in the air as they each made their way in quietly to see Nick, in what could possibly be his last moments alive.   
Nick's systems were severely weakened to the point that he had to be put on a partial life support machine to ease the work of breathing off of his body so that he could focus on healing as opposed to breathing and healing at the same time, strange how something as simple as breathing could require so much energy and so much strength in the body to be able to breathe. There was a plastic tube down his throat and barely listened as Dr. Wendy tried to explain gently that the detective was still able to breathe on his own, it was just that he needed some of the work taken off his shoulders of healing from the multitude of traumas that it had suffered from as Barba and the others let their gaze drift down to Nick's body on the pale white sheets on the bed itself. Nick was lying on a row of pillows to prevent him from rolling over and crushing his tubes and wires that snaked all over him to keep him alive and breathing. His hands and forearms lay out in front of him on a pillow and there were needles attached to thin and narrow tubes that pushed deep into his arteries, pushing in blood, glucose, antibiotics and saline to keep him hydrated, all of the tubes were attached to a multitude of drips hanging from the IV pole near his headboard as he slept.   
There were wires snaking into his hospital gown, monitoring his heart rate and blood oxygenation levels as well as a blood pressure cuff was on his leg, his brown, coarse hair was covered by a cap like those that everyone was given before entering his bay, his hips and lower legs were covered by a blanket and a sheet, Fin noticed the large, wide clear drain on the back of Amaro and he could see a large clear bag attached to it, filled with yellowish red liquid, even Benson had to swallow thickly as she knew, this was not good at all, Zara and Gilberto had dropped everything and were trying to make it to the airports at their respective cities to make it in time to say goodbye to their father before he passed away. Benson tried to ask  
"What are his chances doc?"  
Ruiz thought deeply, she didn't wish to raise false hopes, especially at this critical juncture since Amaro was slipping away according to the heartrate and they all knew it, they just weren't willing to admit to it aloud that this could be the last days, hell, even the last hours of Nick Amaro. She sighed and said  
"At this point, we might estimate...1 in 2,700"  
A cold fist seemed to tighten around Barba's heart as he suddenly understood what those numbers meant, he had taken statistics back in college because it was a requirement to understand numbers as an attorney, but some of that knowledge had become rusty over the years of lack of use, but this was not good, even his memory had served him that much knowledge that his chances of survival were not good at all.   
Barba sighed as he came over, all he could think of was how Amaro looked so small in that bed right now, he was starting to fall for the arrogant, brash man who had fought with him many times over and carried a painful past of his own and tried to hold up a macho image to all the others, while trying to conceal his pain and his misery from the world and now he was here, thin and unconscious and childlike looking and innocent as he slept on, he looked like as if he had nothing to worry about in the world. Barba knelt over, lovingly and whispered a prayer for the Detective and gave him a small kiss and then he left with the rest, not knowing the others also had left to give him a moment of privacy.


	6. It doesn't get better

The hours passed with agonizing slowness, they passed like years before Sonny's very eyes as he sat by Amaro's bedside, he sure as hell wasn't sure how to tell the others that he and Amaro had been dating, seeing each other informally, with irregular schedules, and them working at the same precinct, Sonny couldn't help but feel a sort of chemistry with the Latino man who was struggling for his life under those tubes, he wanted to hold his lover tightly and reassure him that he would be okay, he wanted this feeling of helplessness to stop, he felt as though the panic wouldn't stop consuming him and then...it hit him, he was in love with Amaro, after all, he cared so much about the others, that was true, but the way he cared for Amaro, the way they talked, joked and balked and bantered and interacted with each other, they slowly got to know each other, even Zara and Gilberto loved Uncle Sonny and always wanted to skype him or Zoom him, whatever they could to get a hold of him, they loved his sweet smiles and how kind and responsive he was to what they had been through the day.  
Doctors had been checking in on Amaro in 15 minute intervals, to keep track of his vitals and to make sure he was stable enough to endure something as traumatizing as surgery again, they had all agreed that if Amaro started to slip away, they would let him go because he no longer had the strength to endure anymore heroic resuscitations after all. Dr. Norman made sure that the fluids were being pumped before observing   
"He still is fighting for sure, he still is here."  
Sonny nodded  
"He is a strong man, he is stronger than an Ox for sure, he can keep fighting when he definitely needs to."  
Sonny observed as the doctor moved around to see the drainage from Amaro's back and then he motioned for a nurse to come in with a long needled syringe, some cotton swabs and a alcohol bottle, he watched as the nurse carefully soaked the swabs with alcohol and then rubbed the moist part onto the injection site, the base of his spine and then plunged the needle in with precision, Sonny winced as the needle went in, millimeter by millimeter, of course Amaro was too unconscious to feel anything as he asked  
"Is he okay."  
The doctor said   
"Yes he is, more okay than he has been since he came to the hospital."  
He then met Sonny's eyes with a gentle gaze and then said  
"Keep talking to him Sonny, you're doing the best thing for him, there is a good chance he can hear you and that may be why he is hanging on for so long."  
Soon the neurosurgeon came in and the doctors and nurses came in with the surgical techs to prepare him for surgery and soon they wheeled him away to the Operating Room, Sonny could only helplessly watch the whole spectacle before him as they took Amaro away from him, he felt terrified of the prospect of losing Amaro in the operating room as the knife plunged into him, that scared him to the very core as he couldn't be there to protect him once Amaro was out of his sight. He sat down in the chair as he patiently, or rather, waited with anxiety and he hated waiting so much. He left the Recovery Room and fished out the keys to Amaro's Ferrari as he started driving all over the streets of New York as he saw each and every single street, he felt like all the journeys and all the lifetimes were flowing through his mind, with the tears that rolled down his eyes.  
He felt so many regrets pour through his mind, why didn't he confess his feelings? Why didn't he kiss Nick when Amaro confronted him and most of all, why did he wait so long for a tragedy to manifest his emotions out loud?  
He remembered countless cases that they worked together and it hurt so much how he didn't notice the chemistry between them or how nice and warm Amaro seemed in comparison to the rest of the SVU when he transferred over from Homicide, he knew distinctly that there was a chance that Amaro might not make it, he knew he had to be there for him anyway, he remembered how Amaro fretted over him when he was undercover as a homeless man in a homeless shelter, Nick insisted on him resting and taking his pain meds so that he wouldn't have painful headaches and made sure to wake him up every two hours to make sure he was breathing, now he knew how deep his feelings ran, they both loved each other and now he would not waste anymore time, he would confess his feelings and with time, he knew Amaro would match his own. If he got the chance, that is.   
He yanked the wheel in a 180 degree turn and drove back to Bellevue as soon as he could.


	7. The legacy of a broken man

Sonny waited and waited as the red light above the operation room remained red, it was his beacon of hope, to keep going and to keep hoping that Nick would get out of this just fine, but there was a part of him that told him that he might not be as okay as they hoped he would, that he might be paralyzed, that he might be in a vegetative state, perhaps he could be blind or someone that might need assistance for the rest of his life, his career was potentially over and he could be needing assistance from all those he cared for.   
Sonny looked outside as the sun rose through the buildings, it was a symbol of hope, at least that is what he thought it would be as the sun kept rising and rising and shining upon all that its light touched and yet, Sonny could sense a sort of darkness emanating from the operating room as he waited patiently and it was giving him so much anxiety as he saw the doctor in front of him, he looked terribly exhausted and he looked drained, as if he had been running a marathon for a million miles without catching his breath.   
The doctor sighed and said   
"Amaro passed away on the table during surgery, we tried using resuscitation methods including CPR, but we were not successful in bringing him back. I am so sorry."  
Sonny felt as though his world began to crumble into a million pieces, his tears slowly started to flood his eyes as he blinked and he began to cry and cry and he started to sob uncontrollably as he felt a warm, gentle hand on his shoulder, he cried for the love that never was meant to be, he cried for the memories that he had made and the ones that he never would be able to make, he felt as though he could feel his heart shatter into a million pieces over and over as he struggled to try and rein in his emotions and yet he failed miserably, he wailed in horror as he felt the tears run down his face, the agony of his heartbreak was ripping through his heart, inch by inch, he could feel his own sunlight fading away, draining away with the essence of Amaro that had already drained away and he was gone, never to be seen or heard from again.   
Sonny cried with Amanda, Fin was stunned as he let out a few tears himself, even Barba looked shocked and stunned beyond belief as Sonny ran out of the hallway and he went into the bathroom and let out a storm of tears that he held in for so long, it was so irresistible after so much stress and so much anxiety, this was not the outcome that he wanted, he didn't want to have to lose the man that he loved and yet he did and now he needed to face a world without Amaro and it was a painful thought indeed.  
The next day he slowly got dressed in his dress blues after reluctantly getting out of bed, showering, brushing his teeth, brushing his hair and then he slowly got into his dress pants and then the dress shirt and the tie and then the overcoat and then his cap, he felt like a handsome man who should have been getting married in these dress blues, instead, he was going to bury the love of his life, and nobody would ever know and that made it all the more painful for him to deal with.


	8. A gaping, bleeding wound

Sonny was in tears as the doctor lead him to the elevator, he pressed the button and then the doctor led him down to the morgue as tears filled his eyes, he had a grief that was overflowing his eyes and he couldn't stop himself from wishing that he could cry and scream, his hurt and his pain seemed to feel like it was eroding at his fortitude and his strength and his ability to remain stoic in the face of so much adversity. He knew there was no way he would ever be able to confess and start dating or get married, he would never get the chance to make so many memories that he wanted to do and it hurt him so badly, now he needed to tell Zara and Gilberto that their mother had gone to heaven and that he died doing the right thing, by trying to stop some bad people that were out to hurt some innocent people.  
He went to the mortuary and the funeral home to help finish with the funeral arrangements and ordered a burial at the local New York cemetery, he didn't want his friend to be cremated just like that, just to be a forgotten pile of ashes in a storage unit somewhere, he deserved to be remembered as a man who fought and who died to protect New York from drug cartels, he didn't deserve to be forgotten like this, he deserved more, especially after he had put so much effort into his career and now he couldn't do anymore now that his sprit had broken free from his body.   
Sonny was signing through papers left and right as he chose flower arrangements, the obituary that would be printed in the paper, the church that would do the service, and the graveside service, he wanted there to be a funeral with full NYPD honors, Amaro was a brave man who did everything in his power to try and bring every one of his partners home, and that included Benson, Fin and Sonny. Sonny picked out a coffin, and he chose the bar for the wake, he then chose the dress blues that Amaro would be dressed in to make his final journey to his grave. Sonny then decided to go to a bar and get himself drunk and cry his eyes out for the grief he was feeling, because he felt like it was never going to end, that he would, in the end, be all alone, that he would never find love and that his heart would remain broken forever because death was an accursed thing, it stole the rich and the poor, it stole the good and the evil, it stole all the innocent and the guilty and it didn't discriminate and Sonny hated how death took the man that he had feelings for and he knew that he would never again find love and it surely felt as though his heart had been ripped clear from his chest, as though a monster decided to sit on his chest and restrict his breathing.   
He sighed, he was nursing a nasty hangover and tired from his grief and feeling numb as he dressed in his dress blues, he went to the church and waited for the hearse to come, Amaro's children had come, both clad in black and in tears, as they clung to their parents in grief, he soon was standing with the ceremony guard that would carry the coffin of Sargent Nicholas Amaro Jr, posthumously promoted to Sargent and awarded the medal of Valor because he had given his life in the line of duty so that others could live in his stead. Sonny carried the coffin with tears rolling down his face, he was carrying his lover and he would never get that man back ever again, his pain would never be alleviated again, he and the others lowered it onto the stand that held the flag draped coffin and he cried as he slowly did the motions of saluting it and then standing guard as they did the funeral and the speech and soon the flag was folded and the badge was handed to Zara and Gilberto, Sonny sat on the pew next to the family as he just let his tears flow, he didn't care what the SVU team had to say, all he wanted to do now was finish his schooling and rise up the ranks, he was never going to let those killers go, he would make them pay and make them suffer for what they did to his family. He helped carry the coffin to the graveyard and then the coffin was lowered into the grave and the 21 gun salute was finished, every gunshot made Sonny wince, it reminded him of every bullet that passed through Amaro and not him and it made him extremely guilty of what Amaro had suffered in the end. Even Mike Dodds was sobbing on his father William's shoulders, desperate for comfort and strength. Sonny was never going to fall in love again and he was never going to be happy again, but he would not resign, he would keep fighting and rising, he would become Captain for the man who wanted a bit more and the woman who treated him so harshly, he didn't even get a chance to read his Sargent exam results. He would especially never forgive Olivia, not after how she spoke to Amaro, he would never ever let go of it and he would rise above it all to only become her boss, a Police Chief in the end, a fitting ending for his career.


End file.
